From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
... Melville in the 19th century, who lashed out at military injustice in "Billy Budd," ...
Melville's cousin Guert Gansevoort was a key figure in a naval scandal that helped to inspire Billy Budd. Gansevoort, a navy lieutenant, was first officer of the training ship USS Somers. On an 1842 cruise to Africa, Gansevoort got wind of a supposed plot by a midshipman, Philip Spencer, to seize the Somers and turn it into a pirate ship. Gansevoort told the Somers' captain, who subsequently arrested Spencer and two supposed co-conspirators, then hanged them at sea without trial. This caused quite a hullaballoo when the Somers returned to the US -- not the least because the late Philip Spencer was the son of John C. Spencer, then US Secretary of War. Quite a story. Details at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1162388>
Carl
